ABSTRACT
The field of gerontology aims to study the physiological, social, and psychological aspects of human aging. This chapter discusses some recent claims in the gerontology literature about the relevance of physical theory for the understanding of time and aging. The work by J. F. Schroots and J. E. Birren provides a convenient starting point, since it reviews much earlier work on the nature of time and aging in gerontology. The chapter reviews some aspects of the notion of time that usually arise in discussions of this topic in physics and the foundations of physics literature. Perhaps the most straightforward case in which modern physics has relevance for aging is the particular consequence of the relativity theory known as the Twin Paradox. An important difference from the previous notions is of course that an analysis of social aging involves a strong reliance on normative concepts.
